FORM-Idea

The London International Festival of Theatre is a bi-annual UK based festival, which invites companies from around the world to the capital to present international work.   In the course of its long and illustrious history LIFT has brought such theatrical superstars to UK as Robert LePage, Romeo Castellucci, and De La Guarda.   Founded in 1981 by Rose Fenton and Lucy Neal, their stated aim at the time was “to challenge British theatre and open a window on the world.”  This year’s festival has again brought stunning work to the country and challenged our preconceived idea of what theatre can in fact be.  Below are some of my personal favourites from shows I have seen so far.

Bat Night Market was a wonderful journey of discovery and celebration of that nocturnal and often misunderstood creature.  An immersive adventure where the audience were invited to a futuristic Taiwanese night market, there to sample creative food solutions from our possible future as well as being encouraged to learn more about the world these secretive creatures inhabit.  An intriguing and thoughtful piece.

The Land Acknowledgement is a one-man show, which is both an uncomfortable watch and a laugh out loud piece of theatre, which features First Nations provocateur Cliff Cardinal.  Cardinal takes his audience on a painful journey through the history of first nation’s peoples in the Americas.   The piece is as well a wonderful indictment of a growing (and some would say pointless) trend of acknowledging the original tribal ownership of the land.  Cardinal states in the piece, land acknowledgement is an acknowledgement of a theft but any parent would tell a child who stole something, the solution to this act is to simply give it back.  Land Acknowledgements therefore acknowledge the theft but not the correct action to take next.   Cardinal makes audiences uncomfortable throughout but given the s how’s painful theme, i.e. the exploitation and subjugation of indigenous peoples, it makes sense that audiences would feel uncomfortable but hopefully that discomfort will ultimately lead at some point in the not-too-distant future, to concrete action in restoring the land rights of indigenous people.

My personal favourite is L’Homme Rare, an intriguing dance piece by the acclaimed Nadia Beugré. In this show, she looks at our objectification of bodies, particularly black male bodies.  Coming from the Ivory Coast herself, Nadia Beugré tackles western audiences’ concepts of both race and gender roles since over the course of the evening the men onstage in many ways take on a more female persona.   L’Homme Rare was both challenging as well as invigorating piece.Lift consistently reminds us of how innovative and ground-breaking theatre and dance can and should be.